News Brief

May 18, 2007

A Palestinian employee of Doctors Without Borders is suspected of planning to assassinate Ehud Olmert. Jerusalem District Court charged the 25-year-old Gaza man Thursday with hatching a plot on the Israeli prime minister’s life in collaboration with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group.

According to the indictment the suspect, who was arrested last month, entered Israel using his accreditation with Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian aid organization, and carried out reconnaissance in Jerusalem. He is accused of gathering intelligence ahead of a planned PFLP attack on Olmert or other senior Israeli officials.

The PFLP, which assassinated Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2000, had no immediate comment. Doctors Without Borders sought to distance itself from the case.

“All our staff are hired for professional reasons and I don t think” the group “can be held liable for their personal activities in every respect of their life, Doctors Without Borders representative Duncan McClean told Israel Radio.